Author: Shlomo Bar-Ayal

When Jews stand up for their rights they achieve them. When they don’t then they are mistreated. This is the lesson of Purim and Jewish history.

While we know about Aaron’s sons and grandsons, we do not know about Moses’s sons and grandsons. This is to teach that leadership is not inherited but achieved through merit.

The Torah goes out of it way to praise Betzalel and Oholiab for their contributions and talents. This is to teach us to praise those who do the right thing and encourage others to emulate them.

In the Book of Esther we read that When Esther points out that she would be placing herself in danger to bring the plight of the Jews before the king, Mordechai points out that God is in charge.

While the Tabernacle had a spiritual mission, it was a physical building. As such money was needed for the building and maintenance of the Tabernacle. This is why we say, without flour there is no Torah.

The goal of the Torah is to teach us ethical monotheism. That we worship an ethical and moral God Who wants to be ethical and moral.

The prohibition of the creation of fire on Shabbat is to remember that God created the world & that fire is one of the few acts that we humans do that shows our uniqueness.

The Torah keeps reminding us of the importance of keeping the Shabbat. That Shabbat overrides the building of the Tabernacle. That is to remind us that more than the Jews have kept Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept the Jews.

Moses called for donations to the building of the Tabernacle. The Jews gave so much that he had to ask them to stop giving. This is the nature of a truly religious people. When asked to give, they give.